


Three Times Millicent Needed A Mother (And One Time A Mother Needed Her)

by beetle



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/F, M/M, Post-Inception
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-01
Updated: 2013-05-01
Packaged: 2017-12-10 02:28:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/780717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for this inception_kink prompt, "Ariadne is Arthur and Eames' surrogate mother :) Please please please fill this, I sooo wanna see it."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Times Millicent Needed A Mother (And One Time A Mother Needed Her)

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Owned by Nolan, borrowed by me.

I

  
  
Millicent Arthur-Eames  _hates_  hospitals.  
  
She’s only four and one half years old, but she’s spent enough time in them lately. She knows for a certainty that they’re the kind of place  _no one_  likes, no matter what their daddies tell them. Hospitals are too cold, too busy, and they smell too weird to ever be fun.  
  
“Where in the  _Hell_  is she?” Daddy demands walking back and forth from Millicent’s bed, to the window. He looks out of it for the gabillionth time, frowning in a way that’s meant  _WORRY_  for as far back as Millicent can remember.  
  
Papa sighs and sits on Millicent’s hospital bed; he takes her hand, and gives it a squeeze. Sometimes he looks worried and old, just like Daddy does when he frowns. But when he smiles at Millicent, like magic, he looks the same as always.  
  
“Millie-darling, tell your father to stop being such a sourpuss, and come sit with us before he wears a groove in the floor?” Papa says in a loud whisper that makes Millicent giggle, even though giggling makes her feel tired (everything does, since the doctors told her she had Lucky-me-ah . . . which doesn’t feel very lucky at all).  
  
“Daddy?” When Daddy looks at her, his brow creased with concern, Millicent makes a big, bright smile just for him. “Stop being such a sourpuss before you groove on the floor.”  
  
Papa laughs and Daddy blinks, his face doing that thing where he wants to smile back, but can’t quite. Except . . . he never makes that face at Millicent. He’s always able to find at least as many smiles for her as she can for him.  
  
“Millie, Sweetpea,” he begins gently, in that way that means he’s about to tell her  _no_. But next to her, Papa scoffs and slings his arm carefully around her.  
  
“Leonard, love. Believe it or not, your daughter and I require your presence. Be so kind as to humor us,” he says in a voice that’s extra polite and nice, but masks a command that had better be obeyed.  
  
Daddy sighs and comes over to the bed. He sits on Millicent’s other side, and for a few minutes, it’s perfect: bracketed by her daddies, being hugged to within an inch of her life by the two people she loves most in the world.  
  
Then Daddy sighs again, shaky and unhappy. It makes Millicent’s heart hurt for him. Even though she knows that her Lucky-me-ah is the reason he’s so sad, she also knows there’s nothing she can do to comfort him about it.  
  
“Love, she’ll be here soon,” Papa says, in the voice he uses when Millicent’s woken up from a nightmare. It always works on  _her_ , but it doesn’t seem to ever work on Daddy when he’s upset.  
  
That never stops Papa from trying, though.  
  
“How do you know, Gerry? She’s so far underground,  _I_  couldn’t even  _find_  her!” Daddy squeezes Millicent tighter. So tight, she can barely breathe, but that’s okay. That’s just how she likes her daddy-hugs. “She’s not answering her satellite phone or my emails—her pager’s out of service . . . I’ve left messages with everyone she knows—everyone still in the game, but . . . Christ, what the hell has she gotten herself into, this time? And is it gonna follow her back  _here_?”  
  
“She’d never let that happen, Leonard.” Papa rumbles. He smells like his own cologne, and Daddy’s. “You’ve taught her very well, after all. If she can elude us, she can elude anyone who might be after her.”  
  
“Or anyone that could help pass along the trifling message that oh, yeah, her d-a-u-g-h-t-e-r needs a bone marrow transplant or she may. . . .” Daddy swears. A really  _bad_  swear. Worse than the Hell-word. But then he’s kissing Millicent’s newly-bald head . . . and saying the swear again: “ _Goddamnit_.”  
  
There’s wetness dripping onto Millicent’s scalp, and she thinks Daddy may be . . .  _crying_. . . .  
  
“Darling, she’ll be here,” Papa murmurs, and there’s a soft  _smack_ , followed by slightly softer ones. They’re kissing. It’s kind of ooky, but if it means Daddy stops crying and never cries again, Millicent hopes they kiss forever.  
  
“God, Gerry, why wasn’t I a match?”  
  
“Luck of the draw, my love. Luck of the draw.”  
  
“And if  _she’s_  not a match, either?”  
  
“Then . . . well, then, we’ll take it from there and find another option.”  
  
Daddy mumbles something that sounds like  _I don’t believe in miracles_.  
  
“Well, you may have to start, darling. It’s as simple as that.”  
  
“Not if she gets here. Not if she gets here.”  
  
And Millicent knows the  _she_  they’re talking about is Auntie Ari. They do that a lot, lately. Talk about her. Mostly because they think that she can somehow fix Millicent’s Lucky-me-ah.  
  
Only . . . Millicent doesn’t know how that could be, if the doctors can’t fix it. Auntie Ari is nice—she gives  _the best_  birthday and Christmas presents—but she’s no doctor.  
  
She isn’t even around most of the time.  
  
“She’ll be here, darling,” Papa repeats, and Millicent can’t tell if he’s talking to her, or to daddy. But in the end, she supposes it doesn’t matter. “When the Little Pitcher, here, falls asleep, the first thing we’re going to do is find an empty hospital room and f-u-c-k some of the stress out of you. Then we’re going to get a horrible dinner in the cafeteria, then we’re going to come back up here, and have a nice nap on the cot the hospital so kindly provided for us. Isn’t that right, darling?” Papa leans away to look at Millicent. His smile is gentle, if tired, and Millicent returns it. She’s pretty tired herself, and her smile turns into a yawn.  
  
“Papa?” she asks as he stands up and starts to arrange her blankets and tuck her in. Daddy, meanwhile, is giving her a final squeeze and kiss.   
  
“Yes, sweetheart?”  
  
Millicent lays down and looks up at them: Daddy is standing with his hands in his pockets, his eyes shining, and Papa is leaning over her, as always ready to answer her questions. “What does _fuck_  mean?”  
  
Papa and Daddy share a startled glance.  
  
“Er,” Papa starts to say, and Daddy snorts, covering his mouth with one hand. After a few seconds, something that sounds very much like giggles can be heard coming from behind it.  
  
“Er,” Papa says again, and suddenly Millicent feels a little more awake. She doesn’t know what _fuck_  could be, only that it’s a word that’s making her normally calm parents very, very flustered—to the point that  _Papa_ ’s run out of words and  _Daddy_ ’s giggling.  
  
 _Fuck_  must mean something  _really_  naughty.  
  
“Oh, my God,” Daddy says, still giggling behind his hand, his eyes squinting almost shut. “Well? Go on, Gerry. Tell our four-year-old what  _fuck_  means.”  
  
“Well.” Papa shoots a  _look_  at Daddy, then smiles down at Millicent. “Alright, darling, you remember how we had that talk about how—when two adults love each other, they sometimes lay down together, and—er. . . .”  
  
“Wrestle? Like I saw you and Daddy doing that one time?” Millicent’s gaze travels between them, and they’re both blushing.  
  
“Er, right . . . just like that, only, er—oh, for God’s sake, Leonard, stop giggling like a school girl and help me out!”  
  
Daddy snorts a little and wipes at his eyes. “What Papa means, Millie, is that  _fuck_  is a rude word that little Sweetpeas don’t say. It’s just a way of saying what grownups do together in bed.”  
  
“Oh.” Millicent pouts. And here she’d thought  _fuck_  would mean something  _interesting_.  
  
She yawns again, scooting a little more under the blankets, till they’re up to her chin. She’s always gotten cold easily, but since she’s had Lucky-me-ah, she freezing most of the time. That, and the hospital is just plain  _cold_ , no matter what the nice nurse ladies say.  
  
“When I wake up, will Auntie Ari be here?”  
  
Her parents exchange another glance, this one much more serious than the other.  
  
“Let’s hope so, darling,” Papa says softly, and Daddy paces to the window again, frowning like before.  
  
“Will she bring me a present?” Millicent’s eyes are closing, and she feels heavy, like she could sleep for days and weeks.  
  
Papa kisses her forehead. “Hopefully the best one, yet. Good night, sweetheart.”  
  
Papa’s love follows her down into sleep, along with Daddy’s worry.  
  


II

  
  
Millicent slams her way into the passenger side seat of the car, glaring straight ahead.  
  
“Well,” Daddy says dryly. “I’d ask you how school went today, but I’m afraid you’d bite my head off.”  
  
Millicent scowls and says nothing.  
  
Daddy sighs, and reminds her to buckle her seatbelt. When she does, he pulls out of the school parking lot smoothly.  
  
Halfway home, he sighs again. “Gonna tell me what’s wrong, Sweetpea?”  
  
“Nothing.”  
  
“’Nothing’ doesn’t cause the sour mug  _you’re_  wearing,” Daddy notes. “Maybe talking about it’ll make you feel better.”  
  
“I’m fine.”  
  
When Millicent glances at the rearview, her eyes meet Daddy’s and she looks away quickly.  
  
They don’t say anything for the rest of the ride home.  
  


*

  
  
Over dinner, Millicent pushes her food around her plate while her parents talk.  
  
“ . . . and he says she’s basically got a choice between Stanford and Harvard,” Daddy’s saying proudly. He always talks about Cousin Phillippa like she’s his own kid, and sometimes Millicent wonders if he wishes she were. Or at least that the daughter he has could be more like Practically Perfect Pippa.  
  
“ . . . my alma mater,” Daddy says, spearing a stalk of asparagus with his fork and taking a bite. And he  _must_  be excited, because he always,  _always_  cuts his food into bite-sized (civilized, he says) pieces, rather than ‘gnawing on huge chunks of food like a Neanderthal.’  
  
Papa is laughing. “Be that as it may, Harvard is much older.”  
  
“Older doesn’t mean better, Gerry.”  
  
“I beg to differ, my dove,” Papa murmurs, taking Daddy’s hand and kissing the palm lingeringly. The look Daddy gives him is opaque, but not so opaque that Millicent doesn’t know that if she weren’t there, they’d be hurrying upstairs to ‘wrestle.’  
  
Scowling, she looks down at her plate, dark, grown-out bangs falling into her face. She stabs viciously at a potato and pushes it to the very edge of the plate, where it can suffer in potato solitary.  
  
Silence falls and she looks up. Her parents are watching her carefully, the way they do when they’re trying to figure her out. It never used to annoy her, but lately, it makes her skin itch.  
  
“What?” she demands, and Papa quirks an eyebrow.  
  
“Tone, my love. Tone,” he reminds her in that polite, measured voice he sometimes adopts. And she doesn’t dare grumble under her breath. Daddy may be a stick in the mud, sometimes, but Papa—though he tends to dote on her—is the disciplinarian of the two. He’s a heavy hand with groundings and restrictions.  
  
And Daddy . . . Daddy’s always the one sneaking her comic books and movies so she’s not too bored while under house arrest.  
  
She sighs moodily, looking back down at her plate. They’re good parents. She wouldn’t pick different ones even if she could. It’s just that sometimes . . . sometimes. . . .  
  
“Your attitude tonight, dearest, is leaving much to be desired,” Papa says casually, helping himself to more asparagus. “Is there something you wish to discuss?”  
  
“Gerry,” Daddy says lowly, as if warning him. Millicent sighs again and lets the unfortunate bit of potato out of solitary. It’s free to rejoin the ranks of picked-over vegetables and mutilated chicken once more.  
  
“No, sir. May I be excused?” Millicent mumbles, already scraping her chair back.  
  
“Sweetpea, you’ve barely touched your dinner,” Daddy tells her gently, and when she looks up, his gaze is just as gentle. Her stomach clenches and aches, and she feels guilty for freezing him out—for freezing them both out—but for once . . . they just wouldn’t understand.  
  
“Daddy. . . .” Millicent bites her lips for a moment then looks away. “Please don’t call me ‘Sweetpea’ anymore, Dad, okay?”  
  
Out of the corner of her eye she can see Daddy sit back, as if stung, and feel Papa’s disapproval like a weight on her shoulders.  
  
Now, she wishes she’d said nothing at all.  
  
“Oh,” Daddy says quietly, then laughs. It doesn’t sound like a real one, though. “I guess you  _are_ getting too old for that, huh?” Another phony laugh. “Gonna be thirteen in a few months, aren'tcha, kiddo?”  
  
“Yeah.” Millicent stands up and drums her fingers on the table, waiting to be dismissed. “I’m not a baby, anymore.”  
  
“You’re certainly not,” Papa says, squeezing Daddy’s hand before letting it go. When he speaks again, he sounds tired. “Alright, then. If you’re not hungry, you can go finish your homework.”  
  
“Thanks.” Millicent’s already halfway to the staircase when Daddy calls after her:  
  
“I’ll leave your plate in the microwave, in case you get hungry later!”  
  
Hunching her shoulders, Millicent keeps going, and trots up the stairs before they can make her feel any worse.  
  


*

  
  
Instead of finishing her homework—she can finish it on the bus, in the morning—Millicent sits on her bed, cellphone in hand.  
  
Her finger hovers over the CALL field, and has been for over an hour. Occasionally the phone goes into sleep mode, and when it does, she wakes it again, and sits there, finger hovering once more. The battery is almost dead because of that back and forth.  
  
Finally, decisively, her finger brushes the touchpad.  
  
She holds the phone to her ear and listens to it ring. And ring. And ring some more.  
  
After the ninth ring, it goes to voicemail:  
  
 _Leave a message, and I’ll get back to you._  
  
When the tone chimes, Millicent takes a breath and lets it out. “Hey, Auntie Ari . . . adne. It’s Millie . . . Millicent. Just calling to see how you’re doing. I haven’t talked to you since just before my last birthday and I kinda missed you. And I was thinking of you, today at school.  
  
“So . . . yeah, I guess call me when you get this? On my cellphone. You still have the number, right? Though I suppose you could trace the call, if you wanted. Either way, I’d really like to talk to you. Um. Daddy and Papa are fine, I’m fine. I just . . . really need to talk. Okay. Bye.”  
  
Ending the call, Millicent takes her first breath since voicemail picked up. She puts the phone on her night table and lies down, staring up at the ceiling until she hears her parents’ soft voices and footsteps on the stair. When the door to their bedroom closes, she gets up and walks to her door. There’s a full-length mirror on the back of it, and for a few moment, she critically assesses what she sees:  
  
A small, wiry girl with shaggy dark hair and round dark eyes, wearing a t-shirt—with no need of a training bra on the horizon—blue pajama pants—the same ones she’s had since she was eleven, with the ducks and chickens on them—and fuzzy Guernsey slippers.  
  
She sees a  _loser_. A scrawny loser, with fashion-sense like an eight-year-old and a body to match. A scrawny  _tomboy_  loser who’ll never make a cheerleading squad, but who’s never had trouble making the soccer or basketball team.  
  
Heaving a sigh, she carefully cracks the door open and slips out, shutting it again. She creeps down the stairs, avoiding all the creaky spots, and makes her way to the kitchen.  
  
The lights are out, except for the dim yellow one above the counter. The dishes are in the drying rack and the stove is no doubt clean enough to pass a military inspection.  
  
Next to it, also pathologically clean, is the counter. As she passes the microwave, she peers in, squinting. She can just make out something in there. Her dinner, no doubt.  
  
Her stomach growls and cramps, as she walks on by.  
  
At the end of the counter, nearest the back door, hangs a small dry-erase board, with a list of items the household needs—mostly written by Daddy in small, neat print, with a few addendums in Papa’s loopy, illegible cursive and Millicent’s own blocky, straggling print—and a bright blue marker.  
  
Millicent takes the marker and uncaps it. She hesitates for more than a minute, staring at the things they all need. What seems to be the entire line of Swiffer products for Daddy. Yuengling, tea crackers, and Marmite for Papa. Nutella, chocolate milk, and—half-jokingly—a salamander for Millicent.  
  
Below that, in Papa’s scrawl:  _Dream on, darling._  
  
Below  _that_ , in Daddy’s computer-neat lettering:  _Don’t be a bastard, Gerry. And no salamander, Millie._  
  
And below both of those, added this morning, in Millicent’s own hand:  _You are both fascists and I hate you._  (It had originally said  _u r both fashists and I h8 u._ , but Daddy had corrected the spelling.)  
  
Smiling a little, Millicent almost adds:  _How about a garter snake?_  
  
But the smile fades, little by little, and she erases the whole exchange with her sleeve. In its place, she puts  _maxy pads_.  
  
Seeing it there, under the other everyday products they tend to run out of quickly, makes her want to cry, it looks so wrong. It makes her empty stomach gurgle and her abdomen seize like it’s about to implode.  
  
She turns away from the board and creeps past her leftover dinner, back up the stairs that only creak if you don’t know where to step or don’t care, thence to bed.  
  
Thanks to the damn cramps, sleep is a long time coming.  
  


III

  
  
To say Dad is surprised is an understatement: after all, she’d always been a good researcher and fact-finder. In his opinion, she’d have made a world-class Pointman (or so he said once he got over forbidding her to go into dreamsharing period-no-ifs-ands-or-buts).  
  
Pop, on the other hand, has always been convinced she had the personality and temperament to make a chameleon of a Forger. After all, she’d never had a problem securing the leads in any drama club production.  
  
Uncle Dom, more bemused than anything, had been certain she’d turn out to be an Extractor, just like Jamie has. (Not-so-perfect Pippa has never wanted anything to do with dreamsharing, and is currently in Paris, between careers and husbands.)  
  
Uncle Yusef had been heart-broken that she hadn’t wanted to become a Chemist, but then . . . he’d never seen her with a beaker of something caustic. (But, in her defense, Sammy Tyler’s eyebrows  _did_  grow back. Eventually.)  
  
Ariadne . . . had simply given her something both besides and better than tacit approval. . . .  
  
Now, at twenty, dressed in hipster-tight jeans, battered flip-flops and an MIT sweatshirt, she sits in a waiting room of the Central Intelligence Agency with a metallic briefcase between her feet, and reading the latest issue of  _Time_.   
  
It’s no  _Popular Mechanics_ , but it’s better than ogling the receptionist.  
  
(Oh, said receptionist is fine-ass enough, but in a way that says she’d snap Millicent’s right pinky off if she stepped out of line.)  
  
Finally, after half the morning of waiting, the receptionist looks up with a tight, unreadable smile and says: “Mr. Valleta will see you, now. You can go right in.”  
  
For the first time since making up her mind, Millicent has doubts. Oh, she’s got a ready-made in sitting between her feet,  _plus_  she has her parents contacts in various Agencies—Dad’s contacts alone had gotten her this far—but she wonders, for the first time . . . what the hell she’s doing, wanting to shill for the CIA. If she’s anything like her parents, she’ll eventually wind up on the extra-legal side of dreamsharing anyway. . . .  
  
But her parents had gone through several intelligence agencies in their respective countries before they got to that point. Even her uncles had spent time as military adjuncts. Millicent intends to follow in their footsteps. To suck up everything her government can teach her about PASIVs and dreamsharing, and then. . . .  
  
Who knows?  
  
For now, the Agency is goal enough. What comes after, comes after.  
  
So, with as charming a smile as she can muster—and that’s pretty damned charming—for Little Miss Fine-ass, Millicent stands up and strolls past the reception desk with a wink. “Thanks a bunch, Miss Moneypenny.”  
  
Then she’s letting herself into Valleta’s office and closing the door before she loses a pinky.  
  
The office she finds herself in is large, well-lit, but plain to the point of being bare, with a computer terminal on an unadorned desk which has one chair in front of it and one behind it. The carpet is a plain, easily cleanable grey, and the books on the one bookshelf look unread. There's an autographed photo of the president hanging on the wall.  
  
This office, though clean, doesn't see a lot of use.  
  
Valleta himself looks just the way Dad had described him: a tall, lean man with a forgettable, ageless sort of face and dark hair that’s just beginning to grey and thin. His suit is nice, without being obnoxiously so, and his handshake is firm, without being intimidating.  
  
Like Dad, he carries an air of “Government Issue” about him that’d probably be impossible to shake no matter how long he lived.  
  
“So, you’re Leonard Arthur’s daughter,” he says, holding out his hand and smiling in a way that’s no doubt meant to put her at ease. If she were nervous, that kind of smile would only make her more so. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, young lady. Your father was a legend in his Quantico days. And after.”  
  
Millicent smiles, taking his hand. It’s cool and dry, and she doesn’t hold it longer than necessary—though she shakes it firmly. “I can imagine.” Though she can’t quite, since Dad rarely talks about his days in the service. Unlike Pop, who’ll tell her anything and everything she wants to know about his BI days. Especially since she’d come clean about her aspirations.  
  
“So,” Valleta says when the silence between them draws out a bit too long. “How may I help you today, Miss Arthur-Eames?”  
  
“Ask not what you can do for me, but what I can do for you, Agent Valleta.” Millicent lifts and chunks the metallic case on Valleta’s desk, upsetting a few folders. His eyebrows quirk up in amusement.  
  
“Well, it’s not ticking, so I must admit to being at a loss,” he says mildly, though he has to know what’s in there. Before she’d even gotten in the building, the briefcase had been scanned, searched, and even recorded by security.  
  
Never one to beat around the bush—she gets that from Dad, according to Pop—Millicent presses her thumb to the scan-lock, then punches in the lock-code. The case opens with a soft  _whoosh_ —hermetically sealed, for freshness—and she pushes the cover wide, turning the PASIV case to Mr. Valleta.  
  
Also to his credit, his face still doesn’t lose that bland, harmless, every-man smile, though a wall goes up in his eyes.  
  
“Interesting-looking device. Where’d you get it?” Valleta asks, and Millicent laughs a little.  
  
“This one? I built it,” she replies simply. “I made some improvements to the standard twelve IV cannula, and significantly streamlined the engine—well, I left a copy of the blueprints in there with the PASIV, if you’re interested in the brass tacks.”  
  
Valleta examines the cannula like a man who’s ticking off points in his head. Millicent has the distinct impression he knows exactly what he’s looking at, too.  
  
“I see,” he says, the smile wavering for the first time. When he meets her gaze again, that wall is still there. “And your reason for showing this to me is. . . ?”  
  
“I wanna be a G-man, man.” Millicent says, turning on that charming grin again. Not that it’ll get her anything from Valleta, but it never hurts to try. “I’ve just graduated from MIT with a 4.0, and I can build a standard PASIV in my sleep. Have been since I was seventeen. I could be cranking these out for black market use, but I really don’t think you guys want me doing that. So I want into your dreamsharing program. Frankly, I’m surprised you all haven’t tapped me before now.”  
  
“Hmm. Assuming you learned about these devices from your fathers—or more likely from your mother—“ Valleta’s gaze turns piercing and almost cold “—passing such information on, even to a family member, is illegal. Whoever divulged the existence of these devices to you could spend the rest of their lives  _under_  a federal prison.”  
  
Millicent takes a deep breath. They’ve come down to it, just like her parents and Ariadne had said they would. Sure, the CIA is always greedy for new blood, but that wouldn’t stop it from going after old. If they thought her Dad had anything to do with her knowledge of dreamsharing. . . .  
  
So Millicent plays the only hand she has—the best present Ariadne had given her since she gave Millicent her first PASIV at the tender age of sixteen.  
  
(“Your fathers are gonna kill me. Maybe literally,” she’d said, smiling a little and shoving her hands in her back pockets. “They didn’t want you in the life. Hell, I’m surprised they told you about dreamsharing at all.”  
  
“Yeah. It was real surprising that they did,” Millicent had said innocently, clearing her throat and omitting the fact that  _Jamie_  had been the one to tell her, and that he’d shown her how to use his PASIV when she was fourteen. Instead, she’d touched the heavy, wheeled suitcase Ariadne had smuggled the PASIV into the country in. It was heavy with the silvery-metal PASIV case and a supply of Somnacin.  
  
“Anyway.” Ariadne had glanced nervously around the high school parking lot at Millicent’s blissfully ignorant peers, then closed the trunk of the rental car. “C’mon, kiddo, I’ll give you a ride home. Um . . . your fathers. . . .”  
  
“They don’t get home till after five,” Millicent had assured her. Relieved, Ariadne had grinned, the same grin Millicent had inherited and slung an arm around her shoulders.  
  
“Good! Then I can spend a few hours showing you how it works!”  
  
And never mind that Millicent had known how to use a PASIV for the past couple years—she so rarely got to spend time with Ariadne she wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity to do so.  
  
Especially when Ariadne had then hugged her super-tight, and wished her a happy sweet sixteen in a proud, shaky voice.)  
  
Now, Millicent smiles, as bland and empty as Valleta’s. She’s as good as in, and she knows it. Her parents are safe, and Ariadne’s been implicated for the felony Jamie committed—and with her own blessing. “You’d have to catch my mother before you can hang her, Agent Valleta. Now, about your dreamsharing program. . . .”   
  


I

  
  
Millicent Arthur-Eames  _hates_  hospitals.  
  
She’s thirty-two years old, and she knows from experience that they’re the kind of place  _no one_ likes, no matter what the doctors tell them. Hospitals—well, Intensive Care Units—are too clinical, too quiet, and they smell like dying.  
  
“Where in the  _Hell_  are they?” She demands pacing back and forth from Ariadne’s hospital bed, to the window. She looks at her Blackberry for the gabillionth time, frowning in a way she hasn’t since, oh, five minutes ago.  
  
“Gerry, Leonard—tell your daughter to stop being such a worry-wart, and sit her ass down before she walks a groove in the floor,” Ariadne says in a low, strained whisper that makes Millicent’s stomach churn, even though it’s empty. (Everything, Ariadne says these days makes her stomach churn because it’s always in that pained whisper.)  
  
Pop sighs and sits on one side of Millicent’s unoccupied hospital bed; Dad sits on the other. They both look worried and old . . . except when they smile. Like magic, when they smile, they look the same as always.  
  
“Darling, stop being a worry-wart and come sit down,” Pop says kindly. “You’re supposed to be rested for this sort of thing, and at the rate you’re going, by they time they’re ready to put you under, you’ll be unconscious from exhaustion, anyway.”  
  
“Your father’s right, Sweetpea. You need to relax, and trust that she’ll at least call before the surgery.” Dad pats the bed, his eyebrows raised. Millicent scoffs and paces to Ariadne’s bed. The machines Ariadne’s hooked up to are all beeping like they should, and Ariadne, herself, is bright-eyed and alert—the only truly life-like thing about her, lately, is her eyes.  
  
Millicent sighs, and brushes limp, mostly grey hair back from Ariadne’s waxy brow and kisses it. She receives a small, tired smile in return.  
  
“Mills, believe it or not, your fathers and I know what’s best. So humor us, and sit down,” she says in a voice that’s so weak and breathless, Millicent can’t help but obey. She sits in the chair at Ariadne’s bedside, careful not to disturb any of the apparatuses that keep her going.  
  
Outside the hospital window, the snow’s really starting to come down. Millicent knows this is probably why they’re not here—that in weather like this, even Switzerland battens down the hatches and life slows to a crawl.  
  
But still . . . but still. . . .  
  
She sighs and tries to feel lucky. After all, she  _is_  surrounded by most of the people she loves on the eve of one of the scariest nights of her life. At the end of the ordeal, she’s got a family, career, and a life that she loves waiting for her. And even if she has no one to share those things with . . . she’s still got a lot.  
  
“They’ll be here,” Ariadne says, in the kind of soothing voice that used to make Millicent want to call her  _mom_ , just to see how the word tasted on her tongue. Now, it just makes her want to cry.  
  
“How do you know, Aunt Ari?” Millicent heaves another sigh. “They’re not answering their phones or emails—I’ve been leaving messages for the past day . . . where in the Hell  _is_  she?”  
  
“If there’s anyone who can find a quick way in or out of a country, it’s gonna be Jamie. He was taught very well, after all,” Dad notes then grins. “Almost as well as your father and I taught you.”  
  
“Not to toot our own horns,” Pop adds humbly, and Millicent smiles, despite herself.  
  
“I know, I know, it’s just that—Jesus, the sawbones is about to cut one of my fucking  _kidneys_  out of me. I know she and I didn’t part on the best of terms, but. . . .” Millicent picks at her hospital wristband.  _Arthur-Eames, M._  it says. “ _Goddamnit_ , I thought she’d at least  _call_  to wish us luck. I know it’s too much to hope for that she’d maybe show her face.”  
  
There’s wetness dripping onto Millicent’s hospital gown. She’s . . .  _crying_. . . .  
  
“Honey, she’ll be here,” Ariadne whispers, taking Millicent’s hand. Her eyes are fierce and earnest, and Millicent  _loves_  her. “I promise you, she will.”  
  
Millicent kisses her knuckles and tries to smile. “That’s not something you can promise, but . . . whether or not she does, I’m just glad I was a match.”  
  
“Luck of the draw,” Dad murmurs, half to himself, and Pop puts an arm around him, pulling him close. They’re not exactly thrilled with the idea of her giving up a kidney, but they’d both do anything for Ariadne, and can’t fault her for feeling the same way.  
  
“I just wish you  _weren’t_  a match. That there was some other option.” Ariadne takes a shallow, shaking breath, and tears roll out of her own eyes. “You’re so young . . . the last thing you need is to lose a major organ. God, and what if . . . what if the transplant doesn’t take? As far gone as I am, it’d be a damned miracle if it did.”  
  
“Fortunately for you, I happen to believe in miracles,” Millicent lies smoothly. “And if it doesn’t take, then we’ll go from there and find another option. We’ll  _make_  a miracle happen.” Millicent smiles for real when Ariadne’s eyes widen.  
  
“Oh,” she says, sniffling a little and smiling again. “Oh. Well, I guess . . . if you believe, then I can believe, too.”  
  
And that’s good, because patient morale supposedly has a lot to do with the patient getting better, right? Though, if the doctors can’t fix Ariadne, then Millicent doesn’t know what miracle can.  
  
“Now that that’s settled, you’re going to lay down in this comfortable hospital bed,” Pop says ironically. “You’re going to have a nap. And when Pippa gets here, you’re going to have a happy little reunion and thus stop stressing out on the eve of your surgery. Isn’t that right, darling?”  
  
“That is, indeed, correct, Gerry,” Dad answers for. Even Ariadne nods.  
  
Millicent huffs. “What? Did I just get out-voted?”  
  
“Looks like.” Dad grins and pats the bed again.  
  
“Fascists. Goddamn fascists,” Millicent mutters, standing up and schlepping over to her bed. Her parents stand up and make way for her, all smiles and courtesy. Huffing again, she sits regally, swinging her short, skinny legs up into bed. She tucks them under the blankets because despite the thermal socks, her feet are  _freezing_. Then she squawks when her parents attempt to tuck her in ridiculously tight.  
  
“Jeez, I may have to get up to pee!” She upsets their arrangement of her blankets with rather immature glee.  
  
“Our delicate little lady,” Pop notes fondly, and he and Dad leave the blankets alone, for a wonder. “Now, will you at least  _try_  to get some rest?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Dad looks doubtful then holds out his pinky.  
  
“Oh, no fair!” Millicent complains, and Dad smirks.  
  
“If you’re being honest, you have nothing to worry about.”  
  
Pouting, Millicent holds out her pinky and links it with Dad’s briefly before yanking it away.  
  
“Goddamn fascists,” she says again, turning onto her side, facing the window. The lights go out, except for a small night light in the corner across from the window.  
  
“That was well played, Arthur.”  
  
“Thank you, Mr. Eames.”  
  
Their smug voices follow them out into the hall, and Millicent smiles again.  
  
Ariadne’s chuckle is quiet and dry. “Thirty-five years, and they’re still as adorable as ever.”  
  
“Hmph.”  
  
Ariadne chuckles again. It turns into a brief cough. “Go to sleep. When you wake up, I bet Pippa and Jamie’ll both be here.”  
  
“Jamie, sure. Pip . . . well, I may believe in miracles, but even  _I’m_  not that gullible,” Millicent says ruefully, wishing she were. “She had her reasons for leaving me. Major surgery doesn’t change any of them.”  
  
Sighing, Ariadne sleepily mumbles something Millicent can’t quite make out.  
  
“What was that?”  
  
“I said . . . g’night, Mills. And thank you.” Ariadne’s voice is, tiny, tired, and frail. Millicent swallows. As much as she wishes Pip were here, if a miracle has to happen, she wants it to happen for Ariadne.  
  
“G’night . . . Mom.”  
  


*

  
  
Groggy and disoriented, Millicent wakes up in the middle of the night, almost stiflingly warm.  
  
There’s an arm tight around her, a leg slung over her own, and over the blankets. Sleepily, she starts to protest, but the arm around her tightens even more, the body next to her moving closer. A low hitch sounds in her ear, followed by fervently whispered French.  
  
Still only half awake, Millicent turns her head just enough to see, by the dim lighting, wet, laser-beam eyes and messy blond bangs.  
  
A warm, dry hand comes up to cup her face, and Pippa Cobb smiles. As always, it’s like the sun coming out, but there are tears in her blue-blue eyes, and rolling down her pale cheeks. Millicent frowns and turns to face Pippa so she can return the tight embrace. Pippa hitches again, high and breathless. She leans her forehead against Millicent’s.  
  
“Heyya, babe,” Millicent says, pulling Pippa half on top of her, hands rucking up what feels like a raincoat. Not nearly warm enough for a Swiss winter. “They said you’d show up, but I didn’t believe them . . . I didn’t think you’d come.”  
  
“ _Of course_  I came!” Pippa’s voice is tear-logged, and her grip is panicky-tight once more. “How could you think I wouldn’t?”  
  
“Pip, sweetheart . . .  _you_  left  _me_.” It’s something that still surprises, at the same time as it hurts. And  _still_ , Millicent has no idea why she was left in the first place.  
  
Sometimes, she doesn’t think Pippa knows for sure, either.  
  
Soft sobs shake Pippa’s body. Millicent can’t help but rock her a little, murmuring comfort until the shakes and sobs have lessened.  
  
“Are you cryin’ because you don’t know why you dumped me?” Millicent ventures, confused and a little teary, herself. But after all this time, she  _has_  to know.  
  
“No, I’m crying because I  _do_  know, and it’s all so . . .  _stupid_! Oh,  _je t’aime, je t’aime. C’est tout._ ” Pippa whispers, kissing Millicent’s cheeks, then her lips. She meets Millicent’s startled gaze and laughs through her tears. “Silly woman, I don’t care if you stay with the Agency, I don’t care if you work too much, travel too much, and dreamshare for the rest of your life—I don’t  _care_ , anymore, I just . . . need to  _be with you_!”  
  
Millicent searches Pippa’s eyes. She knows what she  _wants_  to see there, but isn’t sure if that’s the same as what’s  _actually_  there. Months of wanting just . . .  _this_ , and she can’t tell if she’s about to get it. “You mean you wanna get back together?”  
  
Pippa rolls her eyes, like she does when she thinks Millicent’s being purposely dense, but leans in to kiss her, anyway. The kind of kiss that sizzles and lingers. “I mean that I love you, Millie, and that I’ll be here when you wake up. Okay?”  
  
Relieved, Millicent sighs, her eyes already slipping shut again. “Okay. Sounds good t’me,” she yawns, and Pippa kisses her again. Keeps kissing her, and whispering  _je t’aime_ s until Millicent starts whispering them back (quietly, so as not to wake Ariadne if she hasn’t woken up already) and laughing sleepily.  
  
Soon, Millicent’s  _je t’aime_ s turn into more yawns, and fuzzy, barely-conscious mumbles. Pippa sighs, and contents herself with one last kiss and snuggles close, her face hidden in the crook of Millicent's neck. She's got five inches on Millicent, but when they lay down together, she has this way of making herself small. Protectable.  
  
Millicent holds her tighter and this time . . . she's not ever letting go.  
  
Pippa’s love follows her back down into sleep.


End file.
